Field
One or more example embodiments relate to location based assisting apparatuses, methods and/or computer readable mediums.
Description of Related Art
In many cases, people utilize pay vehicles such as taxies and limousine as a mode of transportation. Transportation using pay vehicles is very convenient because it can provide service according to the needs of each user. However, fares of pay vehicles are higher than that of public transportation such as trains and buses.
If a pay vehicle such as a taxi or a limousine hire is shared by more than one user (sometimes referred to as vehicle sharing), the fare per user can be reduced. Particularly, if a plurality of users travel to the same destination, there is relatively high demand for sharing the pay vehicle.
In one related art method for sharing pay vehicles, a vehicle dispatch center recognizes a location where a user desires to obtain on a vehicle and a destination of each of a plurality of users, judges whether or not a vehicle can be shared by extracting users whose locations where they desire to get on the vehicle and whose destinations are the same or who are located within a threshold range, and extracts and dispatches a pay vehicle optimal for sharing only when it is judged that the vehicle can be shared.
However, in this example, if there is no other user whose location where he desires to get in a vehicle and whose destination are the same as those of the user, it is impossible to share a pay vehicle. Further, for example, when a user and a friend of the user whose location where he desires to get in a vehicle is different from that of the user desire to share a pay vehicle to travel to the same destination, the user himself needs to determine a route to share the pay vehicle. However, because each user does not know who is located closest to a pay vehicle, it is difficult to select a pay vehicle and an optimal route while reflecting requests of the users most when the users travel while sharing the pay vehicle.